Dell Networking S5000: The Building Blocks of Unified Fabric and LAN/SAN Convergence

Check out my latest Dell Networking whitepaper: Dell Networking S5000: The Building Blocks of Unified Fabric and LAN/SAN Convergence. The whitepaper demonstrates and explains the movement from a traditional non-converged LAN/SAN network to a converged LAN/SAN infrastructure and how the Dell S5000 switch is an ideal solution for this transition. The whitepaper focuses on deploying a converged solution with FCoE using a Dell S5000 switch. The building blocks of Unified Fabric with FCoE are discussed in detail. In addition, benefits of moving to a converged infrastructure such as less maintenance and considerable cost savings are discussed.

The Dell S5000 switch provides NPIV Proxy Gateway functionality. N_Port_ID Virtualization (NPIV) is an optional Fibre Channel (FC) feature that allows an N_Port to obtain multiple addresses. Each address appears as a separate N_Port to other entities in the fabric. NPIV provides FCoE-FC bridging capability on the Dell S5000 switch. The FC switch used must also support NPIV. The Dell S5000 switch is connected to a FC switch and acts as NPIV Proxy Gateway for respective end nodes.

In the below diagram, you can see a practical use case deploying a Dell S5000 as a NPIV Proxy Gateway. Note, the Dell S5000 could replace a Cisco Nexus or Brocade VDX in such a setup providing FCoE-FC bridging capability.

Converged network using the Dell S5000 converged switch

To learn more about I/O consolidation, converged infrastructure, Fibre Channel, and FCoE, read the Dell Networking S5000: The Building Blocks of Unified Fabric and LAN/SAN Convergence whitepaper.